John Singleton Copley

The son of Irish immigrants Richard Copley and Mary Singleton, the greatest American artist of the eighteenth century grew up in Boston, where his parents made a modest living selling tobacco. Copley's father died when Copley was quite young and in 1748 his mother married Peter Pelham, an engraver who also taught manners, dancing, reading, French, and needlework. Pelham introduced Copley to artistic theory, engraving, composition, technique, and entrepreneurship but did not live to see his talented stepson produce his first professional works. During the mid-1750s Copley tried his hand at engraving, drawing, and history painting and honed his skills as a portraitist in response to local demand. He studied the work of the Scottish emigré John Smibert, many of whose portraits of American subjects remained available for examination in his Boston studio after his death. Copley also studied mezzotints after contemporary English portraits in order to make his portraits correspond to British taste and style. The prints not only made him a more competent artist but also gave him the means to satisfy the demands of those anglophile patrons who wished to be portrayed as British nobility. Copley learned a great deal from the British painter Joseph Blackburn, whose Rococo English manner set a new standard for portraiture in the American colonies. Copley met this standard and soon surpassed it with portraits such as "Epes Sargent" (ca. 1760; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). By the early 1760s he had become the painter of choice for discerning and prestigious Bostonians.

Having proved his talents at home, Copley sent a portrait of his half-brother Henry Pelham, "Boy with a Squirrel" (1765; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), to an exhibition in London in 1766 and earned qualified praise from his compatriot Benjamin West and the esteemed Sir Joshua Reynolds. Their comments influenced his work, even if he dismissed their strong recommendation that he study abroad. His high level of success and income in Boston convinced him that there was no need for him to go elsewhere, though he went to New York for six months in 1771. Not until political circumstances in Boston threatened his family's safety and caused the number of his commissions to decline did Copley consider a trip to Europe. He left Boston in 1774 and spent over a year in Italy and on the continent before settling in London, where he immediately received portrait commissions. He proved himself a talented and innovative history painter with "Watson and the Shark" (1778; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and redoubled his reputation with the brilliant "Death of Major Peirson" (1782-1784; Tate Gallery, London). He had considerable success with history paintings and portraits during the 1790s and, despite his failure to secure the royal patronage he coveted, continued to paint until his death following stroke.